The proportion of traditional maritime risk cases has decreased, and disputes caused by new external risks such as geopolitical conflicts have increased significantly.
In the face of changes in the global trade pattern and the wave of Chinese enterprises “going to sea”, China needs to upgrade its growing “tonnage” advantage in the global shipping market to an institutional advantage, change its original passive attitude of responding to international rules, and take the initiative to build a dispute resolution ecosystem. Building a new highland for international maritime arbitration has become the soft power and strategic growth pole of Shanghai’s “five centers”.
At the “Justice and Arbitration” Forum of the 2025 North Bund International Shipping Forum and the 7th China Maritime Justice and Arbitration Summit Forum held on October 21, Jiang Hongfei, member of the party group and deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Transportation Commission, said that a sound, efficient and reliable judicial and arbitration system is the core embodiment of the soft power of the international shipping center, and it is also an important cornerstone for attracting the agglomeration of global shipping elements and ensuring the healthy and orderly development of the shipping market.
Top-level design and institutional innovation
The state and Shanghai are promoting innovation and breakthroughs in the rules of the maritime arbitration system from the top-level design.
Jiang Hongfei said that the revised “Shanghai Regulations on Promoting the Construction of an International Shipping Center” on February 1 this year has been officially implemented, providing strong legal support for the construction of the shipping center. “Strengthening maritime judicial support and guarantees” and “promoting innovation in maritime arbitration services” are listed as the central tasks of Shanghai’s international shipping construction in 2025. The “Shanghai Shipping Legal Community”, which has been expanded to 37 member units, continues to grow, and coordinates to optimize the shipping legal service ecology.
Judicial support is undoubtedly a key guarantee for the development of arbitration. Cao Jie, vice president of the Shanghai High People’s Court, said that in recent years, the attractiveness of maritime justice and arbitration in Shanghai has continued to increase, and more and more international commercial and maritime disputes have chosen to litigate or arbitrate in Shanghai. According to the World Bank’s corporate survey data released in April this year, among 103 economies, China ranks second and third in terms of court recognition and fairness perception. Since 2020, Shanghai courts have accepted more than 2,600 judicial review cases of various types of arbitration and judicial review, and accepted more than 6,900 applications for arbitration preservation, with an average effective support rate of more than 96%.
On September 12, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress passed the revised Arbitration Law.
Thirteen days later, the Supreme People’s Court issued the “Opinions on Promoting the High-quality Development of International Commercial Courts and Ensuring High-level Opening-up”, proposing a series of measures such as “further improving the rules for judicial review of arbitration”, “creating an arbitration-friendly judicial environment”, and “supporting ad hoc arbitration”.
Cao Jie believes that it is time to strengthen the research on maritime (shipping) legal issues and dispute resolutions and deepen the coordinated development of maritime justice and maritime arbitration. Shanghai will fully respect the agreement of market entities to choose dispute resolution methods, increase assistance in arbitration preservation and arbitration investigation, support Shanghai arbitration institutions to go international, and encourage overseas arbitration institutions to come to Shanghai. At the same time, Shanghai will further promote the implementation of arbitration system innovation, optimize the function of “Shanghai Court International Commercial One-stop Dispute Resolution Platform”, support the new development of Internet arbitration and online arbitration, and strengthen collaborative interaction with the arbitration and legal service circles.
Lu Zheng, deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Justice, pointed out that Shanghai is the only city in China that has both local arbitration institutions, overseas arbitration institutions, business institutions and international representative offices, and has taken the lead in building a “full-chain ad hoc arbitration system rule system”. Since August last year, a number of foreign-related maritime ad hoc arbitration cases have been adjudicated in Shanghai. The newly revised Arbitration Law, which will come into effect in March next year, will introduce an ad hoc arbitration system with Chinese characteristics for the first time, and Shanghai will optimize supporting services to attract global parties to choose ad hoc arbitration to resolve disputes with more stable institutional protection and professional services.
In the view of Yang Fan, deputy secretary-general of China Maritime Affairs and vice president of the Arbitration Court, the reason why London, Singapore and Hong Kong can become international shipping centers is not only because of the outstanding location advantages of natural ports, but also because of the favorable conditions created by acquired people, such as perfect legal guarantees, strong support of the maritime service community, strong financial industry support, stable and positive policy environment, high-quality talent base, advanced technology and innovation, etc., which Shanghai can learn from when building an international shipping center.
Shanghai promotes the construction of the “Five Centers” and the construction of the Asia-Pacific Arbitration Center for the world, giving full play to the advantages of synergy and linkage, which is a far-sighted top-level design.
“The industrial agglomeration effect brought about by the development of maritime arbitration promotes the formation of a maritime service community and plays an important role in the construction of an international shipping center.” She suggested that Shanghai make full use of legislative, administrative, judicial and other multi-level support to vigorously develop maritime arbitration, so as to promote the construction of the entire maritime legal service community and help Shanghai move forward on the list of international arbitration venues.
Lars Lange, Secretary-General of the International Union of Marine Insurance (IUMI), as the setter and coordinator of international marine insurance rules, believes that China’s voice in the global maritime field has increased significantly in recent years. Among them, in terms of cargo insurance, China has become the world’s largest premium market for the first time, and also ranks second in the world in the field of hull insurance, and its share is still rising. The insurance industry, closely linked to the legal profession, increasingly needs to be supported by efficient legal systems.
Escort enterprises to “go global”
Hu Yongqing, vice president of the Shanghai Maritime Court, said in his keynote speech that the current development of international shipping business is changing, and the legal framework faced by Chinese enterprises “going global” is more diverse and professional. In the face of various legal needs, maritime justice is not only a line of defense for dispute resolution, but also an escort to maintain market order and enhance corporate confidence.
In the process of enterprises “going global”, the shipping supply chain is closely related to this. According to Hu Yongqing’s observation, with the deepening of the “Belt and Road” project, the proportion of traditional maritime risks (such as collisions and cargo damage) cases has decreased, while disputes caused by new external risks such as geopolitical conflicts have increased significantly. He cited a dispute selected as a typical case of the Supreme People’s Court as an example, saying that the dispute was blocked due to a conflict in the destination port area, and the Shanghai Maritime Court finally effectively protected the overseas investment interests of Chinese enterprises by clearly dividing the responsibilities of both parties to the transportation and insurance contracts.
In the booming shipbuilding industry, they have also tried high-tech disputes involving LNG ship construction, offshore jack-up platform work design, and new shipbuilding financing. In a Chinese and foreign shipbuilding commission contract, it even directly applied English case law to make rulings, demonstrating its professional ability to handle international commercial disputes. In addition to adjudication, the court also flexibly uses multiple means such as maritime injunctions and mediation to properly handle foreign-related cases.
In the face of the digital and green development of the shipping industry, shipping companies have expanded their business areas and business scope, seizing opportunities but also facing more challenges and disputes.
Hu Yongqing said that in the past three years, the Shanghai Maritime Court has accepted more than 100 cases involving cross-border e-commerce platforms. To this end, the court has specially formulated the “Guidelines for the Trial of Cross-border Logistics E-commerce Platform Dispute Cases” to unify the adjudication standards. In a typical e-commerce platform freight forwarding dispute, the court fully respected the freedom of market contracting in the judgment, clarified the legal status and responsibilities of platform operators, and provided clear expectations for the industry. At the same time, when hearing cases involving “overseas warehouses”, judicial suggestions were issued to relevant enterprises on risks such as cargo storage management standards, so as to promote the compliance and healthy development of new foreign trade formats from the source.
In the seminar focusing on “enterprises going overseas”, Wang Yang, deputy general manager of the legal and risk management headquarters of COSCO Shipping Group Co., Ltd., said frankly that he is most concerned about “the overall risk of international politics and great power games” every day, followed by industry supervision and compliance risks. COSCO SHIPPING’s approach is “three-end” management, namely front-end monitoring and early warning, mid-end compliance management, and back-end risk response, and realizes technology empowerment through the construction of customer compliance management system and AI rule of law application.
Wang Feng, general manager of the risk control center of Shanghai Zhonggu Logistics Co., Ltd., believes that risk prevention and control is inseparable from the “multiple guarantee system”. In addition to insurance, compliance guidelines and risk warnings should also be shared through industry “huddles”. After the risk occurs, “judicial and arbitration guarantees” are the key support for enterprise rights protection. In terms of international dispute resolution, arbitration has become an important choice for enterprises to deal with cross-border disputes due to its advantages such as strong confidentiality, wide scope of award enforcement, and effective avoidance of jurisdictional conflicts.
In the face of trade frictions, Chen Youmu, a senior partner at Shanghai Gongcheng Yingtai Law Firm, said that both Chinese companies “going overseas” and foreign investment in China are facing the “sandwich” dilemma of legal conflicts between China and the United States. The concept of compliance must shift from “rigid lines” to “localism” and risk minimization, “in the case of conflicting compliance regulations, there is no perfect compliance, but how to minimize enterprise risks under this framework”.
Jia Peng, deputy general manager of the China Shipowners Mutual Insurance Association, emphasized that the P&I Association provides shipowners with “high protection and low cost” claims settlement services through the global mutual aid model, and uses professional loss prevention mechanisms to prevent and control risks in advance. In the face of future challenges, he proposed the establishment of “agile response systems and mechanisms” to cope with rapidly changing and sometimes conflicting international rules.
At the forum on the same day, the “Model Arbitration Clauses for Insurance Contracts” and the “Collection of Cases of Enterprises Going Overseas” were officially released.
